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Grownup Swedish Suprise

Personally I'd go for a canister filter on a tank that size.
I use the circulator 500 which is the same pump on a 40lt tank with just a sponge filter on,with the added biomedia chamber it does reduce the flow quite a bit on the turbo.
If you decide to go with the internal Aquael do a spray bar which fits that and the pat mini filter.
 
Maybe I'll leave the Pothos on the plant ladder instead!
That would be my choice, and I think it looks good there. That way if it gets to large you can easily replace it with some fresh cuttings too, something that can be quite tricky in a tank with their sometimes extensive root system. It should also be a bit shadier so it probably won't put out the huge leaves they are capable of growing (my biggest leaf below, but have seen at least twice that size when grown outdoors in tropical climates).
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So, five and a half hours after starting I have finished round one with the tank. Feeling a bit achy and now looking at the carnage in the lounge, trying to get up enough energy to start the clearup.

Will do a proper setup post soon. In the meantime, all I can say is that there was an episode of hardscape rage at one point. Despite soaking my wood, tying it together and gluing it to rocks and to itself the branches still floated, ruining my painstaking work of filling every crevice with hardscape to prevent debris collecting and resulting in the use of a rather unattractively placed piece of slate as an emergency anchor!

Still murky (despite rinsing everything thoroughly), so the bank of Hygrophila at the back aren't that apparent. Put the slow growers in what will be shadier areas, but already worrying they will be too much in the light. I hope the Frogbit multiplies rapidly. I have at least managed to get gentle swaying of all the plants and set up the Aquasky at 40% for 6 hours until things settle. I'll add the riparium plants tomorrow. Off for a celebratory cup of tea now.

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Still murky (despite rinsing everything thoroughly),
Try adding some Seachem Clarity to clear the water. After major plant and cleaning escapades, where the water goes cloudy I dose Clarity and by next day water is crystal clear.

I bought my bottle in late 2016 and is still going, which means it goes a long way or I don't major clean that often !!!
 
Clarity looked pretty good by the next morning. However the placement of the wood proved impractical, so have removed it. Will post pics once it's sorted!
 
Hello folks. It's been a busy few days and I now finally have a chance to catch up on my journal.
Here goes... sorry it's quite long!

I raised the height at the back slightly with a row of mesh bags of pea gravel. Then I added a layer of aquatic pond soil, mixed with coarse sand and a small amount of pea gravel, also contained in mesh bags. I wanted to prevent the cap and soil mixing when I inevitably have to move any wayward/badly placed/shade loving/monster triffid plants and reduce the risk of releasing soil into the water column. I know from previous experience I'll have a small panic attack everytime I move anything otherwise!
Substrate.jpg

Nett bags.jpg

Substrate Foundation.jpg

Substrate Front Viewjpg.jpg

The capping layer is approx. 5 cms of coarse Unipac sand (a mix of Fuji and Samoa). I did add some of the darker sand to the rear of the tank, hoping to add a sense of shadow and depth, but hadn't banked on how much the frosted background would reflect the light and may as well not have bothered...
Suoerglue.jpg

Despite soaking my oak branches for two months, glueing them and tying them to themselves and gluing to the rocks they still floated. Annoying, but not the end of the world. In my dry test run the branches had sat quite firmly in place, but I found that besides the annoying floating they also rolled forwards. Instead I have temporarily used some slate I had to give a little interest to the left side of the tank, whilst I think on what direction I want to go in next. The random sprig of pintatifida sticking out of it is covering up a hole where I'd screwed it to something as a weight previously!! The main hardscape is a lovely piece of Corbo wood.
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Planting - it doesn't look that full in the photo, but I have the following plants in the tank (thank you Aquarium Gardens):

2 x Hygrophila polysperma
2 x Hygrophila Siamensis 53b
2 x Juncus repens
2 x Anubias nana
1 x pot of Pinatifida in vitro
1 x pot of Anubias picolino in vitro
1 x pot of Bucephalandra red
3 x Lutea Hobbit
1 x Hydrocotyle leucocephala
2 x Hydrocotye tripartita
1 x Limnobium laevigatum in vitro
1 x Helanthium tenellum Green in vitro
A few random Hygrophila from another tank

I have to say at this point that I absolutely HATE planting teeny, tiny tenellum Green. It's a fiddly, spikey little devil and it takes an age to plant an entire pot and it then rewards you by floating at will.
V2 FTS.jpg

On day two I moved the Anubias to more shady areas and pushed the leucocephala into a hole at the top of the Corbo wood, so it would float on the surface and give extra shade.
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V2 Tank Corbo.jpg

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I've prepared a couple of riparium plants. Just need to fashion some hangers with the plastic coated horticultural wire, which arrived in the post today.

Lighting - Fluval Aquasky 2.0 21w. Initially set at 30% white, 20% green and red, 3% blue. Dawn 1 hour, daylight 4 hours, dusk 1 hour. I'll start ramping this up in a few days/weeks, but with the frosted background looked mega bright to me at any higher than 30%.

Dosed a general fertiliser on day 2 at 50% recommended rate. I'll lightly dose over the first few weeks. Am basing the dosing regime on any new growth on the plants and using the condition of the Frogbit as an indicator of nutrient levels.
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Current filtration - 1 x Aquael PAT Mini and 1 x Aquael Turbo 500, which is making everything sway gently. However I've always used an external filter in the past and am hating the clutter in the tank, so have just ordered a Oase Biomaster Thermo 250. Figured this will be fine as actual water volume is only 150 litres on account of the deeper substrate and dropped water line. This gives me six times turnover per hour.

Water changes 50% daily so far. Why, oh why did I not buy a pump for water changes years ago????? Loving the Eheim 1000.

Now 9 days in I have no algae other than the expected diatoms on a few surfaces and plant leaves. There is a bit of white fungus on the Corbo, but that should disappear quickly enough, as it had been soaking for a while. I think I just jetwashed off the biofilm, so it's going back through the whole process again. I have added an MTS and a few Ramshorns to assist.

The Anubias and the Frogbit are flowering - yay.
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Please feel free to give me thoughts, pointers etc. I've kept tanks for years, but usually only have fine gravel with a little loose soil under it, root tabs, polysperma and Amazon Swords. The whole planted tank is new to me!
 
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Hi there,
It's interesting watching your tank progress from an empty glass box to having growth and development!
The sprinkle of larger stones on top of the gravel breaks up its uniformity nicely. I tried it scaled down in my nano using sand & gravel then, typically, planted all over the sand. 🙄
Pity about the huge branch, I could just see it with a couple of orchids or a few bromeliads growing there, leading down to the tank...
 
Pity about the huge branch, I could just see it with a couple of orchids or a few bromeliads growing there, leading down to the tank...
I really had hoped I could achieve something like that, but will have to find another way. Am thinking about possibly finding some Redmoor wood to hook over the side of the tank and place some on that. All I need to do now is find the perfect piece!
 
Just need to fashion some hangers with the plastic coated horticultural wire, which arrived in the post today.
You wouldnt have a link to this wire would you? Im looking into doing the same and trying to find the best wire

Tank looks nice, its always so exciting at first when you dont know which direction things will take and youre just waiting for the plants to do their thing 😊
 
You wouldnt have a link to this wire would you? Im looking into doing the same and trying to find the best wire

Hi @Hufsa,

I chose this one, as it's plastic coated:

Kingfisher GSW101 3 mm Heavy Duty Fence Wire - Green Amazon product ASIN B003PJ8YG0
MD Fish Tanks uses one, but the link he gave seemed to be uncoated aluminium, which worries me as everything I can find says its poisonous if it starts to deteriorate. That said his Amazon tank has been running for ages and all the fish are still alive and kicking!
 
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